easy to
say just how far away was that excited crowd of men down there in the
valley. The air was so clear, and the light so brilliant among those
snow-capped mountain ranges, that even things far off seemed sometimes
close at hand.

For all that there were not many pairs of eyes, certainly not many
brown ones like Rita's, which could have looked, as Ni-ha-be did, from
the pass into the faces of her father and brother and recognized them
at such a distance.

She need not have looked very closely to be sure of one thing
more--there was not a single white man to be seen in all that long,
deep, winding green valley.

Were there any white women?

There were plenty of squaws, old and young, but not one woman with a
bonnet, shawl, parasol, or even so much as a pair of gloves.
Therefore, none of them could have been white.

Rita was as well dressed as Ni-ha-be, and her wavy masses of brown hair
were tied up in the same way, with bands of braided deer-skin, but
neither of them had ever seen a bonnet. Their sunburnt, healthy faces
told that no parasol had ever protected their complexions, but Ni-ha-be
was a good many shades the darker. There must have been an immense
amount of hard work expended in making the graceful garments they both
wore. All were of fine antelope-skin; soft, velvety, fringed, and
worked and embroidered with porcupine quills. Frocks and capes and
leggings and neatly fitting moccasins, all of the best, for Ni-ha-be
was the only daughter of a great Apache chief, and Rita was every bit
as important a person according to Indian notions, for Ni-ha-be's
father had adopted her as his own.

Either one of them would have been worth a whole drove of ponies or a
wagon-load of guns and blankets, and the wonder was that they had been
permitted to loiter so far behind their friends on a march through that
wild, strange, magnificent land.

Had they been farther to the east, or south, or north, it is likely
they would have been kept with the rest pretty carefully; but Many
Bears and his band were on their way home from a long buffalo-hunt, and
were already, as they thought, safe in the Apache country--away beyond
any peril from other tribes of Indians, or from the approach of the
hated and dreaded white men.

To be sure, there were grizzly bears and wolves and other wild animals
to be found among those mountain passes, but they were not likely to
remain very near a band of hunters like the one now gathered i